DENVER — — Knowshon Moreno walked into the Broncos' locker room Monday, a crutch nestled in his right armpit. Behind him came the kids, C.J. Anderson, Montee Ball and Ronnie Hillman, like a string of ducklings following their mother.

It's wild to think that a year ago Moreno was looking more and more like a first-round bust, that three months ago, Hillman, who's been inactive for the team's past four games, was listed as the starter going into the season opener. From the outset this fall, Moreno rose above his younger teammates, the clear starter in front of three-man chaos.

Who'd fumble today: Hillman? Ball? Even Anderson got in on the fun at New England on Sunday night.

Who'd be active, who'd be benched? It's seemed almost like a roll of the dice, except for Moreno.

Now, though, the mother duck is injured, and the three who follow remain. Moreno suffered a bone bruise in his lower right leg Sunday and is listed as questionable for this weekend's game at Kansas City. Although interim coach Jack Del Rio said he thinks there's a good chance Moreno will practice by the end of the week, the possibility remains that one of the three younger running backs will have to shoulder the burden of Moreno's reps at Arrowhead Stadium.

"Whoever is up is going to play," Del Rio said. "We'll have our guys ready to play. Anybody that is up and active, we expect them to be able to play a role for us."

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It's not quite so simple, though. Next man up, next man up — you've heard it before, all season long. Trouble is, that philosophy doesn't work as well when the next man up is a fumble-prone rookie, the next man up is an undrafted rookie who caught the fumble bug Sunday, the next man up is so plagued by fumble-itis that he's been benched the past few weeks.

So far in 2013, Ball has put the ball on the ground twice on only 75 carries and Hillman twice in a paltry 40 carries. Anderson, who is only seven carries into his young career, lost the ball then recovered it Sunday. Moreno, by contrast, has fumbled only once in 187 carries this season.

"We're giving it the proper attention," Del Rio said of his team's fumbling problem. "I believe that is something that we can fix ourselves. We control that. And so I believe, as we do that, that we take away the one thing that has kind of been our kryptonite, and hopefully it gets a lot better."

But back to that last number: 187 carries. It's just as big of an issue as the turnovers, and what it signals is clear: Despite week after week of the coaches talking about spelling him, Moreno is overworked. Only five running backs — Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, LeSean McCoy and Jamaal Charles — have played more offensive snaps than Moreno and each is far more established as a starter in the NFL than the 26-year-old Bronco. Sunday, when he ran for a career-high 224 yards at New England, Moreno carried the ball 37 times; every other running back and wide receiver on the team combined touched the ball only 29 times. Moreno was responsible for more than half his team's total offense, and he came away from the game of his career with nothing more than a bone bruise and a 34-31 overtime loss.

"It doesn't matter what you do, when you put more points on the other team, that's when you're happy," Moreno said of the loss. "Everything else we did doesn't really matter because we came up short."

Moreno's health is perhaps the biggest unknown going into this Sunday's game at Kansas City, which is forecast to be another chilly afternoon, perfect conditions for running the ball. Losing him would be a swift punch to the gut for Denver's offense, and the pressure has never been greater for the three players behind him.